Electronic device and communication method

ABSTRACT

An electrical device has processing circuit configured to: select coordinated access points and data distribution center from access points, transmit information about the coordinated access points to the data distribution center, such that in response to the receipt of data from the service gateway, the date distribution center transmits the data to the coordinated access points, and receive the data via the coordinated transmission of the data distribution center and the coordinated access point.

TECHNICAL FIELD

The present disclosure relates to an electronic device and acommunication method, and more particularly, the present disclosurerelates to an electronic device and a communication method of acoordinated transmission system.

BACKGROUND ART

Driven by new services, applications and devices, data traffic in thefuture wireless communications is exploding. A user-centric network hasbeen disclosed, which includes a user equipment, a plurality of accesspoints, and a service gateway, wherein the user equipment does notbelong to any access point in the communication system and selects oneof the access points independently for to provide service for it, forexample, in the paper “Routing in user-centric networks”, X. Xing, T.Jing, W. Zhou, X. Cheng, Y. Huo and H. Liu, IEEE Commun. Mag vol. 52,no. 9, pp. 44-51, September 2014. The paper considered the case of“there does not always exist a complete stable path from the source toits destination” and tried to find the right relay and form a suitablerouting path. In fact, the core idea of this dissertation is that userequipment can be used as a relay to construct a transmission path.However, several algorithms proposed in this dissertation, such as“utilizing human social characteristics”, are virtually impractical inthe current network.

In addition, in a conventional cell, in order to improve the servicequality of the user equipment at the cell edge, a CoMP (CoordinatedMultiple Points Transmission/Reception) technique has been proposed. InCoMP technology, for a user equipment at the cell edge, multiple basestations can serve edge user equipments simultaneously through jointtransmission (JT). When CoMP is performed for the user equipment, anaccess point to which the user equipment belongs determines whether toperform CoMP for it. If it is determined to perform CoMP for the userequipment, the access point reports a service gateway and notifiesneighboring access points to perform joint transmission. Duringtransmission, the serving gateway transmits the data with the userequipment as destination to each access point, and the access pointscoordinatively transmit the data to the user equipment.

SUMMARY

In the prior user-centric network, it is hoped that the communicationquality of the user equipment can be improved. In the prior CoMPtechnology, it is desired to improve the communication efficiency of theuser equipment.

In view of the above, it is desirable to provide a technical solution toimprove the communication quality and communication efficiency of theuser equipment.

One aspect of the present disclosure relates to an electronic device,comprising: processing circuitry, configured to: from a plurality ofavailable access points, select one or more available access points asone or more coordinated access points and select one available accesspoint as a data distribution center, transmit information about the oneor more coordinated access points to the data distribution center, suchthat in response to the receipt of data with the electrical device asdestination from service gateway, the date distribution center transmitthe data with the electrical device as destination to the one or morecoordinated access points, and when receiving the data with theelectrical device as destination, receive the data with the electricaldevice as destination via the coordinated transmission of the datadistribution center and the one or more coordinated access points.

One aspect of the present disclosure relates to an electronic device,comprising: processing circuitry, configured to: in the case that theelectronic device is selected as data distribution center by userequipment, transmit information about the user equipment and the datadistribution center to service gateway, receive information aboutcoordinated access points from the user equipment, in response to thereceipt of data with the electrical device as destination from theservice gateway, transmit the data with the electrical device asdestination to the user equipment and the coordinated access points,such that the data with the electrical device as destination is transmitto the user equipment via the coordinated transmission of the datadistribution center and the coordinated access points; and in the casethat the electronic device is selected as the coordinated access pointsby the user equipment, in response to the receipt of data with theelectrical device as destination, transmit the data with the electricaldevice as destination to the user equipment, such that the data with theelectrical device as destination is transmit to the user equipment viathe coordinated transmission of the data distribution center and thecoordinated access points.

One aspect of the present disclosure relates to a communication method,comprising: from a plurality of available access points, selecting, by auser equipment, one or more available access points as one or morecoordinated access points and select one available access point as adata distribution center, transmitting, by the user equipment,information about the one or more coordinated access points to the datadistribution center, such that in response to the receipt of data withthe user equipment as destination from the service gateway, the datedistribution center transmit the data with the user equipment asdestination to the one or more coordinated access points, and when theuser equipment receives the data with the user equipment as destination,receiving the data with the user equipment as destination via thecoordinated transmission of the data distribution center and the one ormore coordinated access points.

One aspect of the present disclosure relates to a communication method,comprising: in the case that the access point is selected as datadistribution center by user equipment, transmit, by the datadistribution center, information about the user equipment and the datadistribution center to service gateway, receive, by the datadistribution center, information about coordinated access points fromthe user equipment, in response to the receipt of data with the userequipment as destination from the service gateway by the datedistribution center, transmit, by the date distribution center, the datawith the user equipment as destination to the user equipment and thecoordinated access points, such that the data with the user equipment asdestination is transmit to the user equipment via the coordinatedtransmission of the data distribution center and the coordinated accesspoints; and in the case that the access point is selected as thecoordinated access points by the user equipment, in response to thereceipt of data with the user equipment as destination by thecoordinated access points, transmit, by the coordinated access points,the data with the user equipment as destination to the user equipment,such that the data with the user equipment as destination is transmit tothe user equipment via the coordinated transmission of the datadistribution center and the coordinated access points.

In the embodiments of the present disclosure, a coordinated transmissionstructure of the access points is determined by the user equipment toprovide service for it, so that the communication quality of the userequipment can be improved. In addition, in the embodiments of thepresent disclosure, the serving gateway only needs to transmit the dataof the user equipment to the data distribution center, and the datadistribution center distributes the data to other coordinated accesspoints. Therefore, the serving gateway does not need to repeatedlytransmit data to other coordinated access points, improving thecommunication efficiency of the user equipment.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is an example of a user equipment-centric coordinatedtransmission system according to an embodiment of the disclosure.

FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram of a configuration of a user equipmentaccording to an embodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram of a configuration of an access pointaccording to an embodiment of the present disclosure

FIG. 4 is one example of a processing flow of a user equipment-centriccoordinated transmission system according to an embodiment of thepresent disclosure.

FIG. 5 is an example of a process flow of a user equipment of a userequipment-centric coordinated transmission system according to anembodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 6 is one example of a process flow of selecting a data distributioncenter and coordinated access points by a user equipment according to anembodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 7 is a schematic diagram of a process of releasing a coordinatedaccess point by a user equipment according to an embodiment of thepresent disclosure.

FIG. 8 is a schematic diagram of a process of adding a coordinatedaccess point by a user equipment according to an embodiment of thepresent disclosure. FIG.

FIG. 9 is a schematic diagram of updating a coordinated access point ina case where a user equipment moves according to an embodiment of thepresent disclosure. FIG.

FIG. 10 is a schematic diagram of a processing flow of switching a datadistribution center by a user equipment according to an embodiment ofthe present disclosure.

FIG. 11 is a schematic view of switching a data distribution center in acase where a user equipment moves according to an embodiment of thepresent disclosure. FIG.

FIG. 12 is one example of a process flow of an access point of a userequipment-centric coordinated transmission system according to anembodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 13 is a schematic diagram of a process flow performed by a releasedcoordinated access point in the case of releasing a coordinated accesspoint according to an embodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 14 is a schematic diagram of a process flow performed by a datadistribution center in the case of releasing a coordinated access pointaccording to an embodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 15 is a schematic diagram of a process flow performed by anoriginal data distribution center in the case of switching a datadistribution center according to an embodiment of the presentdisclosure.

FIG. 16 is one example of a signaling transmission process of a userequipment-centric coordinated transmission system according to anembodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 17 is one example of a signaling transmission process of updating acoordinated access point according to an embodiment of the presentdisclosure.

FIG. 18 is one example of a signaling transmission process of switchinga data distribution center according to an embodiment of the presentdisclosure.

FIG. 19 is a simulation diagram of transmission delaies of a userequipment-centric coordinated transmission system and a conventionalCoMP technology according to an embodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 20 is a simulation diagram of the number of switching the accesspoints of a user equipment-centric coordinated transmission systemaccording to an embodiment of the present disclosure and that in theprior art.

FIG. 21 is a block diagram illustrating an example of a schematicconfiguration of a smartphone according to an embodiment of the presentdisclosure.

FIG. 22 is a block diagram illustrating an example of a schematicconfiguration of a car navigation device according to an embodiment ofthe present disclosure.

FIG. 23 is a block diagram showing a first example of a schematicconfiguration of an eNB according to an embodiment of the presentdisclosure.

FIG. 24 is a block diagram showing a second example of a schematicconfiguration of an eNB according to an embodiment of the presentdisclosure. FIG.

DESCRIPTION OF EMBODIMENTS

Hereinafter, referring to the drawings, a communication method and anelectronic device implementing the communication method according tovarious embodiments of the present disclosure will be described in thefollowing order

1. Schematic Configuration of a User Equipment-Centric CoordinatedTransmission System According to the Present Disclosure

FIG. 1 is an example of a user equipment-centric coordinatedtransmission system according to an embodiment of the disclosure.

As shown in FIG. 1, the communication system of the present disclosuremay include for example a user equipment (UE) 100, a plurality of accesspoints 200 (200A-200G), and a service gateway 300. Among other things,the serving gateway 300 can communicate with the access points 200 andcontrolling the operation of the access points 200. In addition, theaccess points 200 may provide services for the UE 100 and performwireless communication with the UE 100, thereby providing communicationbetween the user equipment 100 and the service gateway 300. In addition,access points 200 may communicate with each other such that accesspoints 200 can coordinate with each other to provide service to UE 100.

In an embodiment of the present disclosure, the UE 100 may beimplemented, for example, as a radio device, a mobile phone, a cellularphone, a tablet, a communication terminal, a personal digital assistant,a global positioning device, a personal computer, a laptop computer, atelevision, a vehicle communication device, an embedded communicationsprocessor, or any other communications device that is in wirelessnetwork connection with access points 200 and/or a device that operatesin conjunction with those devices, or the like. In an embodiment of thepresent disclosure, the access points 200 may be implemented as, forexample, a macro cell (a base station in a macro cell), a micro cell (abase station in a micro cell), a pico cell (a base station in a picocell), a femto cell (covering home network), a remote radio head (RRH),or any other type of communication device that provides a wirelessnetwork connection for the UE. In addition, in the embodiments of thepresent disclosure, the plurality of access points 200A-200G may bedifferent types of access points.

In the embodiments of the present disclosure, the user equipment 100 andeach access point 200 may be connected by, for example, wirelesscommunication. For example, the wireless communication standard may becode division multiple access (CDMA), time division multiple access(TDMA), frequency division duplex (FDD), time division duplex (TDD),Long Term Evolution (LTE), Long Term Evolution-Advanced (LTE-A), GlobalSystem for Mobile Communications (GSM), General Packet Radio Service(GPRS), and Frequency Division Multiple Access (FDMA) or similarcommunication standard. In the embodiments of the present disclosure,the access points 200A-200G may be connected by, for example, variouswired and wireless communication methods. For example, wired accessthrough the X2 interface by optical fibers or wireless communications byusing a millimeter Wave band may be achieved between the access points.In the embodiments of the present disclosure, the access points 200 andthe serving gateway 300 may use wireless backhaul through the S1interface to implement communication.

In an embodiment of the present disclosure, the UE 100 selects oneaccess point from the surrounding available access points (200A-200G inthe present embodiment) as the data distribution center (200A in thisembodiment) and selects a plurality of access points as coordinatedaccess points (200B, 200C, and 200D in this embodiment) and establish anstructure for coordinated transmission for the UE 100. Upon transmittingdata from the serving gateway 300 to the UE 100, the serving gateway 300firstly transmits the data to the data distribution center 200A. Afterthat, the data distribution center 200A transmits the data to thecoordinated access points 200B, 200C and 200D. Finally, the coordinatedaccess points 200B, 200C and 200D together with the data distributioncenter 200A, in coordination with the data distribution center 200A, tocooperatively transmit the data to the UE 100.

In an embodiment of the present disclosure, a coordinated transmissionsystem established by a user equipment is proposed in which thecooperation manner is no longer determined by the conventional accesspoint but it is the user equipment itself that determines thecooperation manner of the access points providing service for it.Therefore, CoMP technology can be applied to the user equipment-centricnetwork.

In addition, in the user equipment-centric coordinated transmissionsystem according to the embodiment of the present disclosure, the UE 100selects the data distribution center and coordinated access points toperform coordinated transmission for it so as to establish a coordinatedtransmission system, and as compared with the conventional CoMP in whichthe access point of the cell to which the user equipment belongsdetermined whether and how to transmit the data jointly to the userequipment, it is not necessary for the UE 100 to transmit a measurementreport of the state of the surrounding access points to the accesspoints or the serving gateway, thus simplifying the flowpath of theprocess, shortening the processing time and saving communicationresources.

In addition, a user equipment-centric coordinated transmission system ofembodiments of the present disclosure utilizes communication betweenaccess points 200. In an embodiment of the present disclosure, the UE100 selects one of the access points as the data distribution center200A, the serving gateway 300 transmits the data of the user equipmentto the data distribution center 200A only, and the data distributioncenter 200A distributes the data to the coordinated access points 200B,200C and 200D, which then, together with the data distribution center200A, transmit the data to the user equipment 100. Therefore, theserving gateway 300 does not have to repeatedly transmit data to thecoordinated access points 200B, 200C and 200D. In user equipment-centricnetworks, wired communications or wireless communications utilizing alarge amount of available spectrum, such as in the millimeter-wave band,may be used to enable communication between access points 200 and, thusthe data transmission speed between the access points 200 is faster thanthat achieved by wireless backhaul through the S1 interface between theservice gateway 300 and the access points 200. Therefore, in theembodiments of the present disclosure, data of the user equipment 100 istransmitted by the serving gateway 300 to the data distribution center200A only and distributed by the data distribution center 200A to thecoordinated access points 200B, 200C and 200D, and as compared to therepeated transmission of the data of the user equipment 100 by theserving gateway 300 to each of the coordinated access points, thewireless communication resources between the serving gateway 300 and theaccess points 200 can be saved, the transmission efficiency can beincreased, and the data delay can be reduced.

Next, a schematic configuration of a user equipment 100 and an accesspoints 200 according to an embodiment of the present disclosure isdescribed. In addition, the serving gateway 300 in the embodiment of thepresent disclosure is basically the same as the serving gateway in therelated art, and the description of the specific configuration thereofis omitted in the present specification.

1-1. Schematic Configuration of User Equipment 100

FIG. 2 is a schematic configuration diagram of a UE 100 according to anembodiment of the present disclosure.

The UE 100 according to one embodiment of the present disclosure mayinclude, for example, the processing circuit 110, the communication unit120, and the memory 130.

The processing circuit 110 of the UE 100 provides various functions ofthe UE 100. For example, in an embodiment of the present disclosure, theprocessing circuit 110 of the UE 100 may include a selecting unit 111, atransmitting unit 112, and a receiving unit 113. The selection unit 111may be configured to select one or more available access points from theplurality of available access points 200 as one or more coordinatedaccess points 200B, 200C and 200D and to select one of the availableaccess points as a data distribution center 200A. The transmitting unit112 may be configured to transmit information about one or more of thecoordinated access points 200B, 200C and 200D to the data distributioncenter 200A to inform the data distribution center 200A which one ormore of the cooperating access points is selected by the user equipment.The receiving unit 113 may be configured to receive data with theelectrical device as destination from the data distribution center 200Aand the coordinated access points 200B, 200C, and 200D throughcoordinated transmission of the data distribution center and thecoordinated access points.

The communication unit 120 of the UE 100 is configured to performcommunication with each access points 200 under the control of theprocessing circuit 110. The communication unit 120 transmits, theinformation to be transmitted by the processing circuit 110 to theaccess points 200, to the corresponding access points 200 and providesthe information received from each access point 200 to the processingcircuit 110.

In an embodiment of the present disclosure, for example, thecommunication unit 120 may be implemented as an antenna device, and thetransmitting unit 112 and the receiving unit 113 may be implemented ascommunication interface components such as a radio frequency circuit, abaseband processor, and the like.

The memory 130 may store information generated by the processing circuit110, information received from the access points 200 through thecommunication unit 120, and programs and data for the operation of theUE 100. Memory 130 may be a volatile memory and/or a non-volatilememory. For example, the memory 130 may include, but is not limited to,random access memory (RAM), dynamic random access memory (DRAM), staticrandom access memory (SRAM), read only memory (ROM), and flash memory.

1-2. Schematic Configuration of Access Point 200

FIG. 3 is a configuration diagram of an access point 200 according to anembodiment of the present disclosure.

The access point 200 according to one embodiment of the presentdisclosure may include, for example, the processing circuit 210, thecommunication unit 220, and the memory 230.

The processing circuit 210 of the access point 200 provides variousfunctions of the access point 200. For example, the processing circuit210 of the access point 200 may include a transmitting unit 211 and areceiving unit 212. The processing circuit 210 may be configured tooperate according to whether the access point 200 itself is selected bythe UE 100 as a data distribution center or a coordinated access point.

In the case where the access point 200 is selected by the UE 100 as adata distribution center (for example, the access point 200A shown inFIG. 1), the processing circuit 210 may be configured to transmit, bythe transmitting unit 211, the information about the UE 100 andinformation about the access point 200A as the data distribution centerof the UE 100 to the serving gateway 300, to inform the service gateway300 to transmits the information of the UE 100 to the access point 200Awhen transmitting the information of the UE 100. In addition, theprocessing circuit 210 may receive information about the othercoordinated access points (for example, the access points 200B, 200C and200D as shown in FIG. 1) from the UE 100 through the receiving unit 212,thereby the access point 200A as the data distribution center and theaccess points 200B, 200C and 200D as the coordinated access pointsestablish a user equipment-centric coordinated transmission system withthe UE 100. When the processing circuit 210 receives the data with theUE 100 as destination from the serving gateway 300, the processingcircuit 210 transmits the data with the UE 100 as destination to the UE100 and the coordinated access points 200B, 200C, 200C and 200D throughthe transmitting unit 211 so that the data with the UE 100 asdestination can be transmitted to the UE 100 through coordinatedtransmission by the data distribution center 200A and the coordinatedaccess points 200B, 200C and 200D.

In addition, when the access point 200 is selected by the UE 100 as acoordinated access point (for example, access points 200B, 200C and 200Das shown in FIG. 1), the processing circuit 210 is configured to, whenreceiving the data with the UE 100 as destination from the access point200A as the data distribution center, transmit data with the UE 100 asdestination to the UE 100 via the transmission unit 211 throughcoordinated transmission with the data distribution center 200A andother coordinated access points.

The communication unit 220 of the access point 200 may be configured tobe able to perform communication with the respective UEs 100, otheraccess points 200, and the serving gateway 300 under the control of theprocessing circuit 210, for example. Specifically, the communicationunit 220 may transmit the information transmitted by the transmissionunit 211 of the processing circuit 210 to each of the UEs 100, the otheraccess points 200, or the serving gateway 300 to the correspondingdestination and provide the information received from each of the UEs100, other access points 200 or the service gateway 300 to the receivingunit 212 of processing circuit 210.

In an embodiment of the present disclosure, for example, thecommunication unit 220 may be implemented as an antenna device, and thetransmitting unit 211 and the receiving unit 212 may be implemented ascommunication interface components such as a radio frequency circuit, abaseband processor, and the like.

The memory 230 may store information generated by the processing circuit210 and information received from the respective UEs 100, other accesspoints 200 or the service gateway 300 through the communication unit220, and programs and data for the operation of the access point 200.Memory 230 may be a volatile memory and/or a non-volatile memory. Forexample, the memory 230 may include, but is not limited to, randomaccess memory (RAM), dynamic random access memory (DRAM), static randomaccess memory (SRAM), read only memory (ROM), and flash memory.

2. Processing Flow According to an Embodiment of the Present Disclosure

FIG. 4 is one example of a processing flow of a user equipment-centriccoordinated transmission system according to an embodiment of thepresent disclosure.

In step 402, one or more of the surrounding available access points 200(eg, access points 200B, 200C and 200D) are selected by the UE 100 ascoordinated access points (hereinafter referred to as coordinated accesspoints 200B, 200C, and 200D) and selects one of the surroundingavailable access points 200 (eg, access point 200A) as a datadistribution center (hereinafter referred to as data distribution center200A). More specifically, one or more coordinated access points and onedata distribution center are selected by the processing circuit 110 ofthe UE 100 from the surrounding available access points 200.

In step 404, the UE 100 transmits information about the coordinatedaccess points 200B, 200C, and 200D to the data distribution center 200A.More specifically, the information about the coordinated access points200B, 200C and 200D is transmitted by the processing circuit 110 of theUE 100 to the communication unit 220 of the data distribution center200A through the communication unit 120 and is further provided to theprocessing circuit 210 of the data distribution center 200A.

In step 406, the information about the UE 100 and the data distributioncenter 200A is transmitted to the service gateway 300 by the datadistribution center 200A. More specifically, the processing circuit 210of the data distribution center 200A transmits information about the UE100 and the data distribution center 200A to the serving gateway 300through the communication unit 220, thereby notifying the servinggateway 300 that when transmitting data to the UE 100, the data with theUE 100 as destination is sent to the data distribution center 200A.

In step 408, information about coordinated access points 200A and 200Bis received by the data distribution center 200A from the UE 100. Morespecifically, the information about the coordinated access points 200Aand 200B is received from the processing circuit 110 of the UE 100through the communication unit 220 and the communication unit 120 of theUE 100 by the processing circuit 210 of the data distribution center200A.

In step 410, when the data distribution center 200A receives the datawith the UE 100 as destination from the service gateway 300, the datadistribution center 200A transmits the data to the coordinated accesspoints 200B, 200C and 200D and the data with the UE 100 as destinationis then transmitted to the UE 100 through the coordinated transmissionof the data distribution center 200A and the coordinated access points200B, 200C, and 200D. More specifically, when the processing circuit 210of the data distribution center 200A receives the data with the UE 100as destination from the serving gateway 300 via the communication unit220, the processing circuit 210 of the data distribution center 200Atransmits, through the communication unit 220, the data with the UE 100as destination to the coordinated access points 200B, 200C and 200D, andthe data with the UE 100 as destination is transmitted to the UE 100through coordinated transmission of the data distribution center 200Aand the coordinated access points 200B, 200C and 200D.

Hereinafter, the specific details of the above processing flow will beexplained from the perspective of the UE 100 and the access points 200,respectively.

2-1. Example of Operation of the User Equipment According to anEmbodiment of the Present Disclosure

Hereinafter, a specific example of an embodiment according to thepresent disclosure is provided from the perspective of the UE 100.

2-1-1. Example of Operation of the User Equipment to Establish a UserEquipment-Centric Coordinated Transmission System

FIG. 5 is an example of a process flow of a user equipment of a userequipment-centric coordinated transmission system according to anembodiment of the present disclosure. This processing flow is performedby the processing circuit 110 of the UE 100.

In step 502, the selecting unit 111 of the processing circuit 110 of theUE 100 selects one or more access points (eg, access points 200B, 200Cand 200D) in the surrounding available access points 200 as thecoordinated access points 200B, 200C and 200D, and selecting one of thesurrounding available access points 200 (eg, access point 200A) as thedata distribution center 200A.

In step 504, the information about the coordinated access points 200B,200C and 200D is transmitted by the transmission unit 112 of theprocessing circuit 110 of the UE 100 to the communication unit of thedata distribution center 200A through the communication unit 120, so asto be provided to the processing circuit 210 of the data distributioncenter 200A.

In step 506, when the receiving unit 113 of the processing circuit 110of the UE 100 receives the data with the UP 100 as destination from theserving gateway 300 via the access points 200 through the communicationunit 120, data with the UE 100 as destination is received through thecoordinated transmissions of the data distribution center 200A and thecoordinated. access points 200B, 200C and 200D.

In an embodiment of the present disclosure, before starting the aboveprocess, the step of identifying the surrounding available access points200 may also be included. For example, similar to a traditional cellularnetwork, a legacy base station transmits the information of the basestation through a synchronization signal, a reference signal, and abroadcast channel (BCH). The broadcast control channel (BCCH) in thebroadcast channel (BCH) is used for the base station to broadcast commoninformation to all user equipments, including various operatingparameter information of the cell, reference signals and synchronizationsignals for the user equipment to measure channel status such as channelquality, channel direction, etc. and identify cell flags. Therefore, theUE 100 can discover the surrounding available access points 200 byreceiving the cell identification signal broadcasted by the accesspoints 200 through the communication unit 120. In addition, the UE 100can discover surrounding available access points 200 using other meansknown in the art of the present disclosure.

2-1-2. Example of the Operations of the User Equipment to Select theData Distribution Center and the Coordinated Access Points

FIG. 6 is an example of a process flow of selecting a data distributioncenter and a coordinated access points by a user equipment according toan embodiment of the present disclosure. This processing flowcorresponds to step 502 in FIG. 5, and is performed by the selectionunit 111 of the UE 100.

In step 602, the processing circuit 110 of the UE 100 obtains thepredicted service quality of each available access point 200. In step604, the processing circuitry 110 of the UE 100 selects one or moreaccess points from the available access points as coordinated accesspoints and selects one access point as the data distribution centerbased on the predicted service quality of each access point.

The predicted service quality of the access point 200 is an indicationof the service quality predicted to be provided by the access point 200in the event of selection of the access point 200 as an access point forthe UE 100. It will be appreciated that as listed below as an example,it is contemplated that the service quality may be determined based on aplurality of parameters and may include aspects that represent theservice quality that the access point will provide.

In one embodiment of the present disclosure, the predicted servicequality may be based on, for example, the channel quality between theaccess point and the UE 100, the inherent parameters of the accesspoint, the current status information of the access point, and the theresources of the access point predicted to be allocated to the UE 100.

The channel quality between the access points and the UE 100 is measuredby the UE 100 and includes, for example, the strength of the signalreceived by the UE 100, such as reference signal received strength(RSRP) as measured by the UE 100), and parameters of the channelinterference situation between the access points and the UE 100, such assignal to noise ratio (SNR), signal to interference plus noise ratio(SINR), channel quality indicator (CQI), packet loss rate and bit errorrate, etc.

The inherent parameters of the access point include the basic parametersof the access point that can be determined after the access point isestablished and are determined by the basic configuration of thehardware and software of the access point and remain fixed during theoperation of the access point, for example, the type, coverage, workingability of access point and so on. More specifically, the types ofaccess points include, for example, a macro cell (a base station in amacro cell), a micro cell (a base station in a micro cell), a pico cell(pico cell), a femto cell (covering the home network), a remote radiohead (RRH), or any other type of communication device that provides awireless network connection for the UE. However, in the embodiments ofthe present disclosure, some small-sized access points do not have thecapability of becoming a data distribution center if they are affiliatedwith some large-sized access points and can not directly communicatewith the service gateway. For example, some access points are directlymanaged by a macro base station and can communicate with the servinggateway only through a macro base station, and thus can not be a datadistribution center. In addition, the working capability of the accesspoint may include, for example, an efficiency of processing data by theaccess point, whether to support carrier aggregation, whether to supporttransmission of an unlicensed band, configuration of a MIMO antenna, andthe like. The basic parameters of the access point are broadcast by theaccess point over, for example, a broadcast channel (BCH) and can beobtained by the UE 100.

The current status of the access point includes information indicatingthe current working status of the access point, for example, load statusof the access point, working stability and the like. In addition to theforegoing broadcast channel, the current state of the access point mayalso be transmitted to the UE 100, for example, by using radio resourcecontrol signaling as a bearer and thourgh a physical downlink sharedchannel (PDSCH), or by using downlink control information (DCI) as abearer and though physical downlink control channel (PDCCH).

The resources that are predicted to be allocated to the user equipmentindicate how many resources the access point plans to provide to theuser equipment, including, for example, the processing resources of theaccess point and the communication transmission resources of the accesspoint, for example, how many resource blocks (RBs) to be provided to theuser equipment within one time slot. The information about the resourcesto be allocated to the user equipment may be transmitted to the UE 100using, for example, downlink control information (DCI) a bearer andthrough a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH).

Thus, in addition to the parameters listed above, many other parametersrepresenting the service quality to be provided by the access point maybe conceived by those skilled in the art, all of which are includedwithin the scope of the present disclosure.

When the predicted service quality includes a plurality of parametersthat represent aspects of the service quality that the access point willprovide, when selecting the coordinated access point and the datadistribution center in step 604, the various parameters of the predictedservice quality can be considered synthetically to determine whether tochoose the access point as a coordinated access point or datadistribution center. For example, various parameters can be givendifferent priorities, so as to preferentially consider the parameterswith higher-priority.

In an alternative embodiment of the present disclosure, the variousparameters may be given different priorities so that when selecting thecoordinated access point and the data distribution center in step 604,the parameters with higher-priority is more prioritized than theparameters with lower-priority. For a parameter with a certain priority,the UE 100 may predetermine a criterion for the parameter and select anaccess point that satisfies the criterion, or rank the access pointsfrom good to had according to the parameter and select access points inorder.

For example, in one embodiment of the present disclosure, when selectinga coordinated access point, the channel quality between the access pointand the UE may be used as a parameter of the first priority forconsideration, the resource of the user equipment to be allocated by theaccess point is taken as a parameter of the second priority, and theintrinsic parameters of the access point and the current statusinformation are taken as the parameters of the third priority.

In this case, the UE 100 may predetermine the criteria for the channelquality of the access point and select all the access points satisfyingthe criteria as the coordinated access points. Alternatively, the UE 100may sort the access points according to the channel quality between theaccess point and the UE, and sequentially select the access points asthe coordinated access points. For access points with substantially thesame channel quality, the predicted allocation resources of the secondpriority and the intrinsic parameters and the current state of theaccess points of the third priority may be reconsidered.

In particular, in an alternative embodiment of the present disclosure,the reference signal received strength (RSRP) of each access pointmeasured by the UE 100 may be used to represent the channel qualitybetween the access point and the UE. RSRP can be divided into sixcoverage intensity levels, the lower the level, indicating that thegreater the intensity. The UE 100 may, for example, predetermine theRSRP criteria of the access point as RSRPs of level 1 and 2, and accesspoints with RSRP of level 1 (RSRP>−65 dBm) and level 2 (−75 dBm<RSRP≤−65dBm) are all select as a coordinated access points. Alternatively, theLIE 100 may, for example, sort access points according to RSRP levelsfrom low to high and sequentially select access points according to theorder thereof. For access points with substantially the same signalreception strength or channel quality, the predicted allocationresources of the second priority and the intrinsic parameters and thecurrent state of the access points of the third priority may bereconsidered.

In addition, in the embodiments of the present disclosure, the twomanners of selecting the access point that meets the preset criterionand selecting the access point according to the ordering of theparameters are not mutually exclusive, and may be used in combination.For example, when the number of access points satisfying a presetcriterion exceeds a predetermined number of coordinated access points, apredetermined number of coordinated access points may then be selectedaccording to the order of the parameters. For example, when the accesspoints with lower ranks out of the coordinated access points selectedaccording to the parameter ranking can not satisfy the preset criterion,only those access points satisfying the preset criterion may be selectedas the coordinated access point according to a preset criterion.

The method of selecting the data distribution center based on thepriority of the parameters is similar to the method of selecting acoordinated access point, and the same part will not be described indetail herein. The difference between selecting the coordinated accesspoints and a data distribution center based on their priority is thatthe number of selected data distribution centers is one, whiler that ofthe selected coordinated access points are one or more. In addition, foreach parameter, the preset criterions for the coordinated access pointand the data distribution center may be different. For example, a presetcriterion for a data distribution center may be higher than a presetcriterion for a coordinated access point.

In addition, it is understood that the above means of selecting thecoordinated access point and the data distribution center bysynthetically considering the various parameters of the predictedservice quality are merely exemplary and not limiting. Those skilled inthe art may conceive of many other means of selecting a coordinatedaccess point and data distribution center based on various parameters ofthe predicted service quality, and these means are also included withinthe specific embodiments of the present disclosure.

in addition, in the above embodiment, in step 604, the selection ofcoordinated access points and data distribution centers is performedindependently of each other. That is, when the user equipment initiallyaccesses the network, the user equipment may select a coordinated accesspoint and a data distribution center through independent processingflows from each other.

However, in an alternative embodiment of the present disclosure, theselection of the coordinated access points and the data distributioncenter may be formed successively in step 604. For example, in anembodiment of the present disclosure, when the user equipment initiallyaccesses the network, the user equipment may select the coordinatedaccess point first and then further select the data distribution centerfrom the coordinated access points. For example, the inherent parametersof a data distribution center (type of access point, coverage andcapabilities, etc.) may be more important when the user equipmentpredicts the data distribution center to be as stable as possible, andthus the user equipment may select, based on the inherent parameter ofthe access point, a data distribution center from the selectedcoordinated access points. Alternatively, in another embodiment of thepresent disclosure, the user equipment may first select a datadistribution center and then select a coordinated access point from theremaining access points.

In addition, in the above embodiments, for each parameter, the samepriority is applied to each parameter when selecting a coordinatedaccess point and a data distribution center.

However, in alternative embodiments of the present disclosure, for eachparameter, different priorities may also be used in selecting thecoordinated access point and the data distribution center based on thedifference between the performance requirements for the coordinatedaccess point and the data distribution center, thereby selecting anaccess point that is more suitable as a coordinated access point or datadistribution center. For example, the inherent parameters of a datadistribution center (access point type, coverage, and work capabilities,etc.) may be more important than the predicted allocated resources whenthe user equipment predicts the data distribution center to be as stableas possible. Therefore, when selecting the distribution center, thepriority of the intrinsic parameters of the access point can beincreased relative to the predicted allocated resources.

2-1-3. Example of Operation of the User Equipment to Update theCoordinated Access Point

The updates of the coordinated access point include the release andaddition of coordinated access points by user equipment. After the userequipment-centric coordinated transmission system is established, whenthe UE 100 discovers that the current service quality of one or more ofthe coordinated access points is lower than a preset criterion or findsthe predicted service quality of the available access point is higherthan the current service quality of the current coordinated accesspoint, the user equipment starts to release the original access point.In addition, after releasing the original access point or when the userequipment determines that the coordinated access point needs to beincreased, the UE 100 performs a process of adding a new access point.

The current service quality of the coordinated access point is anindication of the service quality currently provided by the coordinatedaccess point for the user equipment. It is to be appreciated thatsimilar to the predicted service quality, the current service qualitymay also be determined based on a number of parameters and may includeaspects that represent the service qualitys currently provided by thecoordinated access point, which are not described in detail herein.

FIG. 7 is a schematic diagram of a process of selecting, by a userequipment, to release a coordinated access point according to anembodiment of the present disclosure. This process flow is performed bythe UE 100.

In step 702, the processing circuit 110 of the UE 100 obtains thecurrent service quality of the current coordinated access point anddetermines whether to release the coordinated access point according tothe current service quality of the access point. In step 704, theprocessing circuit 110 of the UE 100 transmits the information about thereleased coordinated access point to the data distribution centerthrough the communication unit 120.

In step 702, the processing circuit 110 of the UE 100 determines torelease the coordinated access point after the current service qualityof the coordinated access point is below a preset threshold for acertain period of time. For example, when the UE 100 finds that thechannel quality (eg, RSRP) between the current coordinated access pointand the UE 100 is lower than a preset threshold for a certain period oftime, it determines to release the coordinated access point.

In addition, in another embodiment of the present disclosure, step 702further includes the step of obtaining the predicted service quality foreach of the available access points 200. Then, if the predicted servicequality of the available access point 200 is higher than the currentservice quality of the current coordinated access point, the processingcircuit 110 of the UE 100 determines to release the current coordinatedaccess point and add the available access point 200 as coordinatedaccess point. For example, if the predicted service quality of theavailable access point 200 is higher than the current service quality ofthe current coordinated access point by a predetermined threshold andremains above the current service quality of the current coordinatedaccess point by a predetermined threshold for a predetermined period oftime, the processing circuit 110 of the UE 100 determines to release thecurrent coordinated access point and newly adds the available accesspoint 200 as a coordinated access point.

Then, in step 704, the UE 100 transmits the information of the currentcoordinated access point to the data distribution center 300 andnotifies the data distribution center 300 to remove the coordinatedaccess point from the user equipment-centric coordinated transmissionsystem, such that when the data distribution center 300 receives thedata with the UE 100 as destination again, the data is not transmittedto the released coordinated access point.

Afterwards, when the UE 100 determines to replace the original accesspoint with a new access point or determines to add a new access pointbased on the original set of coordinated access points, the additionoperation of the coordinated access point is performed.

FIG. 8 is a schematic diagram of a processing flow of selecting to add acoordinated access point by a user equipment according to an embodimentof the disclosure. This process flow is performed by the UE 100.

In step 802, the UE 100 selects one of the surrounding available accesspoints 200 as a newly added coordinated access point. In step 804, theinformation about the newly added coordinated access point is sent bythe UE 100 to the data distribution center 200A. In step 806, when theUE 100 receives data with the UE 100 as destination from the servinggateway 300, the UE 100 receives the data with the UE 100 as destinationthrough coordinated transmission of the data distribution center and thecoordinated access point including the newly added coordinated accesspoint.

The operation performed by the UE 100 in step 802 is similar to theoperation of the UE 100 selecting the coordinated access point describedwith reference to step 502 in FIG. 5 and FIG. 6, which is not describedin detail here.

In an exemplary embodiment of the present disclosure, in order to limitthe number of coordinated access points, the UE 100 may perform anoperation of increasing a coordinated access point only when theoriginal coordinated access point is replaced with a new one, or may setupper limit for the number of coordinated access points based on thespecific circumstances and when the number of coordinated access pointsreached the upper limit, no longer increase the coordinated accesspoints.

A typical example of the above situation is when the user equipmentleaves the current coordinated access point and approaches anotheraccess point in a scenario where the user equipment continuously moves.FIG. 9 is a schematic diagram of updating a coordinated access pointwhile user equipment is moving according to an embodiment of the presentdisclosure.

In (A) of FIG. 9, for the UE 100, the access point 200A serves as a datadistribution center, the access points 200B and 200C serve ascoordinated access points, and the access point 200D is remote from theuser equipment and is not selected as the coordinated access point ofthe user equipment.

As shown in (B) of FIG. 9, when the UP 100 moves to another location,its distance from the current coordinated access point 200B increasesand the distance from the available access point 200D decreases, and atthis time, the UE 100 can obtain the current service quality of thecoordinated access point 200B and the predicted service quality ofavailable access point 200D. When the current service quality of theaccess point 200B is less than the predicted service quality of theaccess point 200D for a predetermined period of time, the UE 100 maydetermine to release the coordinated access point 200B and add theaccess point 200D as a coordinated access point.

After that, as shown in (C) of FIG. 9, the UE 100 notifies the datadistribution center 200A to release the coordinated access point 200Band to newly add the coordinated access point 200D to establish a userequipment-centric coordinated transmission system as shown in (C) ofFIG. 9.

According to the embodiment of the present disclosure, the dynamicupdating mechanism of the access point of the user equipment-centriccoordinated transmission system can effectively enable the multi-pointcooperation to adaptively adapt the user equipment's continuously movingtransmission scenario.

2-1-4. Example of Operation of User Equipment to Switch DataDistribution Center

A switching of the data distribution center refers to selecting a newdata distribution center in a coordinated access point by the userequipment to replace the current data distribution center. It isunderstood that the replacement of the data distribution center needs tore-establish the entire coordinated structure, so that when the currentservice quality of the current data distribution center can meet therequirements, even if there are available access points with higherpredicted service quality, the current service quality is not switched.For example, the user equipment may be released only when the currentdata distribution center cannot meet the service requirement, and thenselect one of the remaining coordinated access points as the new datadistribution center. Specifically, after establishing a userequipment-centric coordinated transmission system, when the UE 100 findsthat the current service quality of the data distribution center isdeteriorating and unable to meet service requirements, the userequipment starts to replace the data distribution center.

The current service quality of the data distribution center is anindication of the service quality currently provided by the datadistribution center to the user equipment. It is to be appreciated thatsimilar to the predicted service quality, the current service qualitymay also be determined based on a number of parameters and may includeaspects that represent the service qualitys currently provided by thecoordinated access point, which are not described in detail herein.

FIG. 10 is a schematic diagram of a processing flow of selectingswitching of a data distribution center by a user equipment according toan embodiment of the present disclosure. This process flow is performedby the UE 100.

At step 1002, the processing circuit 110 of the UE 100 obtains thecurrent service quality of the current data distribution center anddetermines whether to switch the data distribution center according tothe current service quality of the access point. Specifically, after thecurrent service quality of the data distribution center is below apreset threshold for a certain period of time, the processing circuit110 of the UE 100 determines to switch the data distribution center. Forexample, after the UE 100 finds that the channel quality (eg, RSRP)between the current data distribution center and the UE 100 is lowerthan a preset threshold for a certain period of time, it determines toswitch the data distribution center.

In step 1004, the processing circuit 110 of the UE 100 selects one ofthe current coordinated access points as a new data distribution centerin response to determining to replace the data distribution center.Specifically, in step 1004, when the processing circuit 110 of the UE100 determines to switch the data distribution center, the currentservice quality of each coordinated access point is obtained, and thedata distribution center is selected according to the current servicequality.

The operation performed by the UE 100 in step 1004 is similar to theprocess of the UE 100 selecting the data distribution center describedin step 502 in FIG. 5 and referring to FIG. 6, which is not described indetail herein. However, the difference between them is that when the UE100 switches the data distribution center, it selects the datadistribution center only from the current coordinated access point,instead of selecting the data distribution center from all the availableaccess points. In addition, at the time of switching the datadistribution center, since the coordinated access point is alreadyserving the user equipment, the UE 100 at this time selects a new datadistribution center according to the current service quality of thecoordinated access point instead of choosing a new data distributioncenter according to the predicted service quality.

In step 1006, the processing circuit 110 of the UE 100 transmits theinformation about each of the coordinated access points to the new datadistribution center through the communication unit 120, such that uponthe receipt of the data with the electronic device as destination, thenew data distribution center sends the data to each coordinated accesspoint.

In step 1010, the processing circuitry 110 of the UE 100 releases theoriginal data distribution center. Specifically, the processing circuit110 of the UE 100 notifies the original data distribution center throughthe communication unit 120 to stop serving the user equipment and reportthe relevant information to the serving gateway 300.

A typical example of the above situation is when the user equipmentleaves the current data distribution center in a scenario where the userequipment continuously moves. FIG. 11 is a schematic view of switching adata distribution center in a case where a user equipment movesaccording to an embodiment of the present disclosure. FIG.

In (A) of FIG. 11, for the UE 100, the access point 200B serves as adata distribution center, the access points 200A and 200C serve ascoordinated access points, and the access point 200D is remote from theuser equipment and is not selected as coordinated access point or datadistribution center of the user equipment.

As shown in (B) of FIG. 11, when the UE 100 moves to another location,its distance from the current data distribution center 200B increases,and at this time the UE 100 may find that the current service quality ofthe data distribution center 200B falls below a threshold and thusDetermined to switch the data distribution center. After that, the UE100 selects one of the coordinated access points 200A and 200C as a datadistribution center.

As shown in (C) of FIG. 11, the UE 100 selects the coordinated accesspoint 200A as a data distribution center, and transmits informationabout the coordinated access point to a new data distribution center, sothat the new data distribution center establishes the user equipmentcentric coordinated transmission system as shown in (C) of FIG. 11.

In addition, in an alternative embodiment of the present disclosure, theUP 100 may also perform an operation of adding a coordinated accesspoint after switching the data distribution center. For example, asshown in (D) of FIG. 11, the UE 100 may newly add the access point 200Das a coordinated access point.

In the prior art, the user equipment selects an access point with thebest channel quality as its service access point, and if it is foundthat there is a better access point, the access point switching isperformed immediately. In this case, it is considered as one switchingwhen the home access point of the user equipment is switched.

In contrast, in the user equipment-centric coordinated transmissionsystem according to the embodiment of the present disclosure, when thecoordinated access point of the user equipment is updated, the impact onthe service quality of the user equipment is very small, and the updatecost is also very low. Only when the data distribution center connectedwith the serving gateway is switched, the connection between the newdata distribution center and the serving gateway needs to bere-established. In this case, it is considered as one switching onlywhen the data distribution center is switched.

In addition, in a user equipment-centric coordinated transmission systemaccording to an embodiment of the present disclosure, since the datadistribution center and the plurality of coordinated access points servethe user simultaneously, the degradation of the service quality for thedata distribution center may be greatly tolerated. For example, even ifthe service quality of a data distribution center begins to deteriorate,there is no need to switch the data distribution center because multiplecoordinated access points can still provide users with good servicequality. In addition, the dynamic update mechanism of the coordinatedaccess point according to the embodiment of the present disclosure canalso ensure that a coordinated access point with a higher servicequality serves the user, thereby reducing the switching frequency of thedata distribution center. In addition, in the embodiment of the presentdisclosure, the user equipment may start to replace the datadistribution center when the service quality of the data distributioncenter deteriorates to fail to meet the service requirement, therebyreducing the frequency of the switching of the data distribution center.

Therefore, the internal switching mechanism of the data distributioncenter of the user equipment-centric coordinated transmission systemaccording to the embodiments of the present disclosure can effectivelydeal with scenarios where the user equipment moves, greatly reducing thenumber of the switching of the data. distribution center and greatlyreducing the delay caused by the switching of the data distributioncenter.

2-2. Example of the Operation of the Access Point According to anEmbodiment of the Present Disclosure

Hereinafter, a specific example according to an embodiment of thepresent disclosure is provided from the perspective of the access point200.

2-2-1. Example of Operation of the Access Point to Establish a UserEquipment-Centric Coordinated Transmission System

FIG. 12 is one example of a process flow of an access point of a userequipment-centric coordinated transmission system according to anembodiment of the present disclosure.

In step 1202, the processing circuit 210 of the access point 200 firstdetermines whether the access point 200 is selected by the UE 100 as acoordinated access point or data distribution center. Specifically, theprocessing circuit 210 of the access point 200 determines whether theaccess point 200 is selected by the UE 100 as a coordinated access pointor data distribution center based on a request received from the UE 110through the communication unit 220.

In the case where the access point 200 is selected by the UE 100 as adata distribution center, the processing circuit 210 of the access point200 transmits information about the UE 100 and the access point 200 as adata distribution center to the service gateway 300 in step 1204,thereby notifying the serving gateway 300 to transmit the data with theUE 100 as destination to the access point 200. In an embodiment of thepresent disclosure, the data distribution center feeds back onlyinformation of the served user equipment and its own information to theserving gateway 300 without providing the serving gateway 300 with theinformation of the coordinated access points serving the user equipment.Therefore, for the serving gateway 300, its operation is similar to thatof the user equipment centric network in the prior art, ie, the servinggateway 300 transmits data with the user equipment as destination to aconnection point selected by the user equipment, while the operationsperformed by the data distribution center and the coordinated accesspoint are transparent to the service gateway 300 and do not need to beknown.

Thereafter, in step 1206, the processing circuit 210 of the access point200 receives information about the coordinated access point from theuser equipment. Based on the information about the coordinated accesspoint, the access point 200, which is a data distribution center, cancommunicate with the coordinated access point to confirm the resourcescheduling for coordinated transmission to the UE 100. Specifically, inthe embodiments of the present disclosure, the data distribution centerand the coordinated access point may be conventional base stations,while in traditional cellular networks, communication and signalinginteractions are performed by X2 interfaces between base stations, so asto implement mobile support, load management, inter-cell interferencecoordination and other functions. Thus, information exchange regardingcoordinated transmission between the data distribution center and thecoordinated access point is enabled through, for example, an X2interface, to confirm the mutual identity and arrange the resourceallocation of the user equipment by the data distribution center in aunified manner, so as to realize the coordinated transmition for theuser equipment between the plurality of access points and the datadistribution center by using the same resource block.

Afterwards, in step 1208, when the access point 200 receives the datawith the UE 100 as destination from the serving gateway 300, the data issent to the coordinated access point so that the data to the UE 100 istransmitted through the coordinated transmission of the access point 200which is the data distribution center and the coordinated access points.

When the access point 200 is selected by the UE 100 as a coordinatedaccess point, in step 1210, when the access point 200 receives the datawith the user equipment as destination from the data distributioncenter, under the resource scheduling of the data distribution center,the data is transmitted to the UE 100 through coordinated transmissionwith the data distribution center.

In an embodiment of the present disclosure, before step 1202, theprocessing circuit 210 of the access point 200 may further broadcast anidentification signal of the access point 200 to the UE 100 through thecommunication unit 220 for the user equipment to identify the accesspoint 200. In addition, the processing circuit 210 of the access point200 may also broadcast the inherent parameters of the access point 200to the UE 100 through the communication unit 220. The intrinsicparameters of access point 200 include one or more of the type of accesspoint, coverage, and working capabilities.

In one embodiment of the present disclosure, prior step 1202, theprocessing circuit 210 of the access point 200 may also generate andtransmit, in response to receiving a request from the user equipment forstatus information of the access point 200, the current statusinformation of the access point 200 through the communication unit 220.In addition, in one embodiment of the present disclosure, prior to step1202, the processing circuit 210 of the access point 200 may alsogenerate and notify, in response to receiving a request by the userequipment for resources that the access point 200 predicts to assign tothe user equipment, the user equipment of the resource that the accesspoint 200 predicts to assign to the user equipment.

In an embodiment of the present disclosure, the identity of the accesspoint as a data distribution center or a coordinated access point may bedetermined for one user equipment. That is, the access point maysimultaneously become a coordinated access point or data distributioncenter for multiple user equipments, or the access point may act as adata distribution center for some user equipments and acts as acoordinated access point for some other user equipments at the sametime.

2-2-2. Examples of Operations of the Coordinated Access Points and DataDistribution Centers When Updating a Coordinated Access Point

In the case of adding a new coordinated access point, the operationperformed by the newly added coordinated access point is similar to step1210 in FIG. 12, and the description thereof is omitted here. Inaddition, the operation performed by the data distribution center in thecase of adding a new coordinated access point is similar to the steps1204 to 1208 in FIG. 12, and the description thereof is also omittedhere.

FIG. 13 is a schematic diagram of a process flow performed by a releasedcoordinated access point in the case of releasing a coordinated accesspoint according to an embodiment of the present disclosure.

At step 1302, the processing circuit 210 of the access point 200receives a release request from the UE 100 through the communicationunit 220. At step 1304, the processing circuit 210 of the access point200 transmits release confirmation information to the UE 100 through thecommunication unit 220 and disconnects the connection with the UE 100.

FIG. 14 is a schematic diagram of a process flow performed by a datadistribution center in the case of releasing a coordinated access pointaccording to an embodiment of the present disclosure.

In step 1402, the processing circuit 210 of the data distribution center200 receives the information about the released coordinated access pointfrom the UE 100 through the communication unit 210. In step 1404, theprocessing circuit 210 of the data distribution center 200 removes thereleased coordinated access point from the coordinated access points.

According to the access point dynamic update mechanism of the userequipment-centric coordinated transmission system according to thepresent disclosure, which is described in each embodiment of the presentdisclosure, according to the present disclosure, it is effective toenable coordinated multi-point real-time to adapt to the transmissionscenarios in which the user equipment is constantly moving.

2-2-3. Example of Operations of the Data Distribution Center WhenSwitching Data Distribution Center

When the data distribution center is switched, the operation of the newdata distribution center is similar to the operation described withreference to steps 1202-1208 in FIG. 12, and the description thereof isomitted.

FIG. 15 is a schematic diagram of a process flow performed by anoriginal data distribution center in the case of switching a datadistribution center according to an embodiment of the presentdisclosure.

In step 1502, the processing circuit 210 of the original datadistribution center 200 receives a request to release the datadistribution center from the UE 100 via the communication unit 210. Instep 1504, the processing circuit 210 of the original data distributioncenter 200 transmits release confirmation information to the servicegateway 300 and the UE 100 via the communication unit 210 anddisconnects the connection with the user equipment.

According to the reason discussed in the section 2-1-4 of the presentspecification, the internal switching mechanism of the data distributioncenter of the user equipment-centric coordinated transmission systemaccording to the present disclosure described in each of the aboveembodiments of the present disclosure can efficiently deal with thescenario in which the user equipment is moving, greatly reduce thenumber of switching of the data distribution center and greatly reducethe delay caused by the switching of the data distribution center.

3. Signaling Transmission Process According to an Embodiment of thePresent Disclosure

FIG. 16 is one example of a signaling transmission process of a userequipment-centric coordinated transmission system according to anembodiment of the present disclosure. The specific signaling process isas follows:

(1) The access point broadcasts its own identification signal andinherent parameters: the access point broadcasts the cell identificationsignal so that the UE can discover the access point and determine thechannel quality with the access point; and the access point alsobroadcasts the inherent parameters of the access point, such that the UEcan obtain the inherent parameters of the access point, such as the typeof access point, coverage, working capability and the like. For example,an access point may transmit synchronization signals as identificationsignals and broadcast respective intrinsic parameters using a broadcastchannel (BCH).

(2) The user equipment identifies the access point that presents in thevicinity by detecting the identification signal of the access point: theuser equipment discovers the available access points in the vicinity byreceiving and detecting the cell identification signal.

(3) The user equipment transmits a connection request to the identifiedaccess point: the user equipment transmits a connection request to theidentified available access point, for example, transmits a randomaccess request, and then the access point starts allocating serviceresources for the user equipment and establishes a data communicationconnection with the user equipment. For example, the user equipment mayperform RRC (radio resource control) connection with the access pointthrough a random access procedure and enter an RRC connection state,thereby establishing a data connection with the access point.

(4) The access point generates the current state information of theaccess point and determines the resources that is predicted to beallocated for the user equipment.

(5) The access point transmits the current status information of theaccess point to the user equipment and notifies the user equipment ofthe resources that are predicted to be allocated to the user equipment.For example, the access point may also transmit the current stateinformation of the access point and information about the resources thatare predicted to be allocated to the user equipment to the userequipment by using, for example, radio resource control signaling as abearer and through a physical downlink share channel (PDSCH), or usingdownlink control information (DCI) as a bearer and through the physicaldownlink share channel (PDCCH).

(6). The user equipment determines whether to use the access point as acoordinated access point.

(7). The user equipment transmits a coordinated access point request tothe access point. For example, after determining that the access pointis a coordinated access point, the user equipment may transmit acoordinated access point request to the access point through a physicaluplink control channel (PUCCH).

(8) The access point acknowledges the request as a coordinated accesspoint for the user equipment: the access point feeds back a confirmationmessage to the requesting user equipment to become its coordinatedaccess point. For example, the access point may feed back confirmationinformation to the requesting user equipment through a physical downlinkcontrol channel (PDCCH).

(9) The user equipment determines whether to use the access point as adata distribution center.

(10) The user equipment transmits a data distribution center request tothe access point. For example, after determining that the access pointis a data distribution center, the user equipment may transmit a datadistribution center request to the access point through a physicaluplink control channel (PUCCH).

(11) The access point confirms the request as a data distribution centerfor the user equipment. For example, the access point may feed backconfirmation information to the requesting user equipment through aPhysical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH) to become its datadistribution center.

(12) The user equipment transmits the information of the coordinatedaccess point that serves it to the data distribution center. Forexample, after confirming the data distribution center, the userequipment may report the information of the coordinated access pointthat serves it to the data distribution center through a Physical UplinkControl Channel (PUCCH).

(13) The data distribution center generates a user equipment-centriccoordinated transmission system: after the data distribution centeracquires the information of the remaining coordinated access points ofthe user equipment, a user equipment-centric coordinated transmissionstructure is locally generated.

(14) The data distribution center informs, the other coordinated accesspoints of the user equipment, of the related cooperation information.For example, the data distribution center may notify the coordinatedaccess points of the user equipment through, for example, the X2interface, to confirm the resource scheduling for coordinatedtransmission.

(15) The coordinated access points transmit confirmation message to thedata distribution center. For example, the coordinated access points ofthe user equipment may feedback confirmation information to the datadistribution center of the user equipment through, for example, an X2interface.

(16) The data distribution center reports the information of the userequipment and data distribution center to the serving gateway. Forexample, after the data distribution center completes the userequipment-centric coordinated transmission system, the data distributioncenter may report the information of the user equipment and the datadistribution center to the service gateway through, for example, theS1-U interface.

(17) The gateway transmits a confirmation message to the datadistribution center. For example, after receiving the report of the datadistribution center, the serving gateway confirms the structure of theuser equipment and the data distribution center and can feedback theconfirmation information through, for example, the S1-U interface.

Up to this point, a user equipment-centric coordinated transmissionsystem according to an embodiment of the present disclosure has beenestablished. Thereafter, when the serving gateway transmits data to theuser equipment, the data is sent to the data distribution center, andthen is sent by the data distribution center to each of the coordinatedaccess points, so that the data is transmitted to the user equipmentthrough the coordinated transmission of the the data distribution centerand the coordinated access points.

FIG. 17 is one example of a signaling transmission procedure of updatinga coordinated access point according to an embodiment of the presentdisclosure.

The specific signaling procedure for adding a coordinated access pointto a user equipment is as follows:

(1)-(8). The user equipment identifies a new access point and joins theexisting set of coordinated access points. This part of the process issimilar to the signaling process (1)-(8) of the establishment of a userequipment-centric coordinated transmission system as shown in FIG. 16,and thus will not be repeated here.

(9). Report the information of the updated coordinated access point:when the user equipment adds a coordinated access point, the informationof the newly added coordinated access point is reported to the datadistribution center. For example, the user equipment may report theinformation of the newly added coordinated access point to the datadistribution center through a physical uplink control channel (PUCCH).

(10). Update the coordinated transmission structure of the userequipment: the data distribution center updates the userequipment-centric coordinated transmission structure based on theinformation of the coordinated access points reported by the userequipment.

(11) Notify the newly joined coordinated access point: the datadistribution center will notify the user equipment of the updatedcoordinated access point to confirm resource scheduling for coordinatedtransmission. For example, the data distribution center may notify theuser equipment of the coordinated access point via, for example, the X2interface, to confirm resource scheduling for coordinated transmission.

(12) Coordinated access point reports to the data distribution center:the coordinated access point will feedback a confirmation message to thedata distribution center of the user equipment. For example, thecoordinated access point may feedback confirmation information to thedata distribution center via, for example, an X2 interface.

Still referring to FIG. 17, a specific signaling process for the userequipment to release the coordinated access point is as follows:

(13). Determine whether to release the coordinated access point: for acoordinated access point that has already served the user equipment, theuser equipment will determine whether to release the coordinated accesspoint based on its service quality.

(14) Transmit the request for releasing the coordinated access point:after determining to release the coordinated access point, the userequipment transmits a release request to the coordinated access point.For example, after determining to release the coordinated access point,the user equipment may transmit a release request to the access pointthrough a physical uplink control channel (PUCCH).

(15) Release confirmation: After receiving a release request from theuser equipment, the coordinated access point will terminate service forthe user equipment and feedback the release confirmation message. Forexample, the coordinated access point may feed back releaseacknowledgment information to the user equipment over a physicaldownlink control channel (PDCCH).

(9) Report the information of the updated coordinated access poinst:after the user equipment releases the existing coordinated access point,the information of the released coordinated access point is reported tothe data distribution center. For example, the user equipment may reportthe information of the released coordinated access point to the datadistribution center over a Physical Uplink Control Channel (PUCCH).

(10) Update the coordinated transmission structure of the userequipment: the data distribution center updates the userequipment-centric coordinated transmission structure based on theinformation of the coordinated access points reported by the userequipment.

With the signaling procedure shown in FIG. 17, the coordinated accesspoints can be dynamically updated.

FIG. 18 is one example of a signaling transmission process of switchingthe data distribution center according to an embodiment of the presentdisclosure. The specific signaling process is as follows:

(1). Determine whether to switch the data distribution center: the userequipment determines whether to switch the data distribution center bymonitoring the service quality of the data distribution center.

(2) Reselect the data distribution center: the user equipment selects anew data distribution center from the coordinated access points based onthe current service quality of the coordinated access points.

(3)-(6). The user equipment requests the coordinated access point to bea new data distribution center and transmits the information of othercoordinated access points to the new data distribution center. The newdata distribution center generates the user equipment-centriccoordinated transmission structure, notify the coordinated access pointsand reports to the service gateway. This part of the process is similarto (10)-(17) of the signaling transmission process shown in FIG. 16, andwill not be repeated here.

(7) Request to release the data distribution center: the user equipmenttransmits a release request to the original data distribution center.For example, the user equipment may transmit a release request to theoriginal data distribution center through a physical uplink controlchannel (PUCCH).

(8) Stop the service of the original data distribution center: theoriginal data distribution center stops serving the user equipment, andreports the relevant information to the service gateway.

(9) Release confirmation: the original data distribution centertransmits a release confirmation message to the user equipment. Forexample, the original data distribution center may feedback the releaseacknowledgment to the user equipment through a Physical Downlink ControlChannel (PDCCH).

With the signaling procedure shown in FIG. 18, the data distributioncenter can be dynamically switched.

4. Simulation of the User Equipment-Centric Coordinated TransmissionSystem According to an Embodiment of the Present Disclosure

FIG. 19 compares the transmission delay of a user equipment-centriccoordinated transmission system according to an embodiment of thepresent disclosure and a conventional CoMP technique. Here we assumethat there are 3 access points for coordinated transmission, where thelegacy CoMP is provided by three eNBs to provide coordinatedtransmission, and the user equipment-centric coordinated transmissionsystem according to an embodiment of the present disclosure consists ofone data distribution center and two coordinated access points toprovide coordinated transmissions. In the 1000 m*1000 m square region,assuming that there are 10 randomly distributed user equipments, thedelays of multiple data transmissions from the serving gateway to 10users are calculated by simulation, and a probability distributionfunction graph of transmission delays is obtained. The transmissiondelays of the user equipment-centric coordinated transmission systemaccording to the embodiment of the present disclosure and theconventional CoMP technique are then compared by comparing probabilitydistribution functions.

Assume that each user equipment needs to receive a packet of the size 20Mb. Assume that the service gateway has a 20 MHz transmission bandwidthand a transmission rate of 5 bps/Hz for transmitting data to the accesspoint. Therefore, when transmitting data of the size 20 Mb from theserving gateway to one access point, the data transmission delay is: 20Mb/(5 bps/Hz*20 MHz), where 20 Mb is the packet size and 5 bps/Hz israte from the service gateway to access point, and 20 MHz is the servicegateway transmission bandwidth. After that, the transmission delay fromthe access point to the user equipment is 20 Mb/(r bps/Hz*5 MHz), wherer bps/Hz represents the transmission rate from the access point to theuser equipment, and 5 MHz represents the transmission bandwidth.

In traditional CoMP technology, data packets of the size 20 Mb need tobe transmitted from the serving gateway to three access points.Therefore, the data transmission delay from the serving gateway to thethree access points is approximately three times of the datatransmission delay from the service gateway to one access point, ie 3*20Mb/(5 bps/Hz*20 MHz).

In the user equipment-centric coordinated transmission system accordingto the embodiment of the present disclosure, the service gateway onlyneeds to transmit data packets of the size 20 Mb to the serving gatewaywithout transmitting the data packet to other coordinated access points.The data transmission delay from the service gateway to the datadistribution center is only 20 Mb/(5 bps/Hz*20 MHz).

In addition, in the user equipment-centric coordinated transmissionsystem of the embodiment of the present disclosure, since the distancebetween the data distribution center and the coordinated access point isvery close, the communication therebetween can be performed through thefaster wire communication or the short-range millimeter wave frequencyband, so the data transmission delay from the data distribution centerto the coordinated access point is much smaller than the above datatransmission delay, and can be substantially ignored when calculatingthe transmission delay from the serving gateway to the user equipment.For the existing millimeter wave hand, the commonly used frequency bandis, for example, Ka band (26.5 GHz to 40 GHz), and the availablebandwidth is large (GHz-class bandwidth), which therefore, as comparedto the bandwidth at the MHz level (5 MHz in the above simulation) of theconventional frequency 1 to 3 GHz band used between the service gatewaysto the access points and between the access points to the userequipments, is undoubtedly huge, so the data transmission rate may benearly a thousand times larger. In addition, the directionaltransmission technology in the millimeter wave transmission technologycan realize the simultaneous transmission of the same frequency to thecoordinated access points in different directions by the datadistribution center, ie, parallel transmission, thereby furtherimproving the data transmission rate from the data distribution centerto the coordinated access point.

So, in general, in the traditional COMP technology, the transmissiondelay from the serving gateway to the user equipment is about 3*20 Mb/(5bps/Hz*20 MHz)+20 Mb/(r bps/Hz*5 MHz), while in a user equipment-centriccoordinated transmission system according to an embodiment of thepresent disclosure, the transmission delay from the serving gateway tothe user equipment is approximately 20 Mb/(5 bps/Hz*20 MHz)+20 Mb/(rbps/Hz*5 MHz). It is obvious that the user equipment-centric coordinatedtransmission system of the embodiments of the present disclosure cansignificantly reduce the transmission delay from the serving gateway tothe user equipment.

It can also be seen from the simulation result of FIG. 19 that thetechnical solution according to the embodiment of the present disclosurecan greatly reduce the transmission delay from the serving gateway tothe user equipment.

It can be seen that according to embodiments of the present disclosure,multi-point coordinated data transmission is achieved by utilizingshort-distance millimeter-wave transmission between access points, whichgreatly saves transmission resources from the service gateway to theaccess point.

FIG. 20 compares the number of switching the access points of the userequipment-centric coordinated transmission systems according to anembodiment of the present disclosure and tha tin the prior art when theuser equipment moves through an area where N access points are randomlydistributed.

In the prior art, the user equipment selects an access point with thebest channel quality as its service access point, and if it is foundthat there is a better access point, the access point switching isperformed immediately. In this case, the change of the access point towhich the user equipment belongs is considered as one switching.

In contrast, in the user equipment-centric coordinated transmissionsystem according to the embodiment of the present disclosure, when thecoordinated access point of the user equipment is updated, the impact onthe service quality of the user equipment is very small, and the updatecost is also very low as well. Only when the data distribution centerconnecting to the service gateway is switched, the connection betweenthe new data distribution center and the serving gateway needs to bere-established. In this case, only the switching of the datadistribution center is considered as one switching.

According to an embodiment of the present disclosure, in a userequipment-centric coordinated transmission system according to anembodiment of the present disclosure, the number of switching of thedata distribution center is reduced. Therefore, in the case where thenumber of coordinated access points is M, since the time for the datadistribution center to keep providing service for the user equipmentwill be extended accordingly, the number of switching of the datadistribution center can be effectively reduced.

As shown in FIG. 20, it can be found that, under the setting of N=40 andM=3, in the user equipment-centric coordinated transmission systemaccording to the embodiment of the present disclosure, the number ofswitching of the data distribution center is only half of that in thetraditional scheme. At the same time, as the number of coordinatedaccess points M increases, the number of switching can be furtherreduced.

5. Application Example

Technology according to one or more of the embodiments of the presentdisclosure is applicable to various products.

For example, the user equipment 100 may be realized as a mobile terminalsuch as a smartphone, a tablet personal computer (PC), a notebook PC, aportable game terminal, a portable/dongle type mobile router, and adigital camera, or an in-vehicle terminal such as a car navigationdevice. The user equipment 100 may also be realized as a terminal (thatis also referred to as a machine type communication (MTC) terminal) thatperforms machine-to-machine (M2M) communication. Furthermore, the userequipment 100 may be a module (such as an integrated circuit moduleincluding a single die) mounted on each of the terminals.

For example, the access point 200 may be realized as any type of evolvedNode B (eNB) such as a macro eNB, and a small eNB. A small eNB may be aneNB that covers a cell smaller than a macro cell, such as a pico eNB,micro eNB, or home (femto) eNB. Instead, the access point 200 may berealized as any other types of base stations such as a NodeB and a basetransceiver station (BTS). The access point 200 may include a main body(that is also referred to as a base station device) configured tocontrol radio communication, and one or more remote radio heads (RRH)disposed in a different place from the main body. Additionally, varioustypes of terminals to be discussed later may also operate as the accesspoint 200 by temporarily or semi-permanently executing a base stationfunction.

For example, the service gateway 300 may be realized as any type ofserver such as a tower server, a rack server, and a blade server. Theservice gateway 300 may be realized in a module (such as an integratedcircuit module including a single die, and a card or a blade that isinserted into a slot of a blade server) mounted on a server.

5-1. Applications Related to User Equipment

(First Application)

FIG. 21 is a block diagram illustrating an example of a schematicconfiguration of a smartphone 900 to which an embodiment of thetechnology of the present disclosure may be applied. The smartphone 900includes a processor 901, a memory 902, a storage 903, an externalconnection interface 904, a camera 906, a sensor 907, a microphone 908,an input device 909, a display device 910, a speaker 911, a radiocommunication interface 912, one or more antenna switches 915, one ormore antennas 916, a bus 917, a battery 918, and an auxiliary controller919.

The processor 901 may be, for example, a CPU or a system on a chip(SoC), and controls functions of an application layer and another layerof the smartphone 900. The memory 902 includes RAM and ROM, and stores aprogram that is executed by the processor 901, and data. The storage 903may include a storage medium such as a semiconductor memory and a harddisk. The external connection interface 904 is an interface forconnecting an external device such as a memory card and a universalserial bus (USB) device to the smartphone 900.

The camera 906 includes an image sensor such as a charge coupled device(CCD) and a complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS), andgenerates a captured image. The sensor 907 may include a group ofsensors such as a measurement sensor, a gyro sensor, a geomagneticsensor, and an acceleration sensor. The microphone 908 converts soundsthat are input to the smartphone 900 to audio signals. The input device909 includes, for example, a touch sensor configured to detect touchonto a screen of the display device 910, a keypad, a keyboard, a button,or a switch, and receives an operation or an information input from auser. The display device 910 includes a screen such as a liquid crystaldisplay (LCD) and an organic light-emitting diode (OLED) display, anddisplays an output image of the smartphone 900. The speaker 911 convertsaudio signals that are output from the smartphone 900 to sounds.

The radio communication interface 912 supports any cellularcommunication scheme such as LTE and LTE-Advanced, and performs radiocommunication. The radio communication interface 912 may typicallyinclude, for example, a BB processor 913 and an RF circuit 914. The BBprocessor 913 may perform, for example, encoding/decoding,modulating/demodulating, and multiplexing/demultiplexing, and performsvarious types of signal processing for radio communication. Meanwhile,the RF circuit 914 may include, for example, a mixer, a filter, and anamplifier, and transmits and receives radio signals via the antenna 916.The radio communication interface 912 may also be a one chip module thathas the BB processor 913 and the RF circuit 914 integrated thereon. Theradio communication interface 912 may include the multiple BB processors913 and the multiple RF circuits 914, as illustrated in FIG. 21.Although FIG. 21 illustrates the example in which the radiocommunication interface 912 includes the multiple BB processors 913 andthe multiple RF circuits 914, the radio communication interface 912 mayalso include a single BB processor 913 or a single RF circuit 914.

Furthermore, in addition to a cellular communication scheme, the radiocommunication interface 912 may support another type of radiocommunication scheme such as a short-distance wireless communicationscheme, a near field communication scheme, and a radio local areanetwork (LAN) scheme. In that case, the radio communication interface912 may include the BB processor 913 and the RF circuit 914 for eachradio communication scheme.

Each of the antenna switches 915 switches connection destinations of theantennas 916 among multiple circuits (such as circuits for differentradio communication schemes) included in the radio communicationinterface 912.

Each of the antennas 916 includes a single or multiple antenna elements(such as multiple antenna elements included in an MIMO antenna), and isused for the radio communication interface 912 to transmit and receiveradio signals. The smartphone 900 may include the multiple antennas 916,as illustrated in FIG. 21. Although FIG. 21 illustrates the example inwhich the smartphone 900 includes the multiple antennas 916, thesmartphone 900 may also include a single antenna 916.

Furthermore, the smartphone 900 may include the antenna 916 for eachradio communication scheme. In that case, the antenna switches 915 maybe omitted from the configuration of the smartphone 900.

The bus 917 connects the processor 901, the memory 902, the storage 903,the external connection interface 904, the camera 906, the sensor 907,the microphone 908, the input device 909, the display device 910, thespeaker 911, the radio communication interface 912, and the auxiliarycontroller 919 to each other. The battery 918 supplies power to blocksof the smartphone 900 illustrated in FIG. 21 via feeder lines, which arepartially shown as dashed lines in the figure. The auxiliary controller919 operates a minimum necessary function of the smartphone 900, forexample, in a sleep mode.

In the smartphone 900 illustrated in FIG. 21, one or more of thecomponents comprised in the processing circuity 110 (the selecting unit111, the transmitting unit 112, and the receiving unit 113) describedwith reference to FIG. 2 may be implemented in the radio communicationinterface 912. Alternatively, at least some of these components may alsobe implemented in the processor 901 or the auxiliary controller 919. Asan example, the smartphone 900 may mount a module including a part (forexample, the BB processor 913) or the entire radio communicationinterface 912, the processor 901 and/or the auxiliary controller 919,and the information acquisition unit 241 and the control unit 243 may beimplemented in the module. In this case, the module may store a program(in other words, a program causing the processor to execute operationsof the information acquisition unit 241 and the control unit 243)causing the processor to function as the information acquisition unit241 and the control unit 243, and execute the program. As anotherexample, a program causing the processor to function as the informationacquisition unit 241 and the control unit 243 may be installed in thesmartphone 900, and the radio communication interface 912 (for example,the BB processor 913), the processor 901 and/or the auxiliary controller919 may execute the program. As described above, as a device includingthe information acquisition unit 241 and the control unit 243, thesmartphone 900 or the module may be provided. A program causing theprocessor to function as the information acquisition unit 241 and thecontrol unit 243 may also be provided.

In addition, in the smartphone 900 illustrated in FIG. 21, for example,the communication unit 120 described with reference to FIG. 2 may beimplemented in the radio communication interface 912 (for example, theRF circuit 914).

(Second Application)

FIG. 22 is a block diagram illustrating an example of a schematicconfiguration of a car navigation device 920 to which an embodiment ofthe technology of the present disclosure may be applied. The carnavigation device 920 includes a processor 921, a memory 922, a globalpositioning system (GPS) module 924, a sensor 925, a data interface 926,a content player 927, a storage medium interface 928, an input device929, a display device 930, a speaker 931, a radio communicationinterface 933, one or more antenna switches 936, one or more antennas937, and a battery 938.

The processor 921 may be, for example, a CPU or a SoC, and controls anavigation function and another function of the car navigation device920. The memory 922 includes RAM and ROM, and stores a program that isexecuted by the processor 921, and data.

The GPS module 924 uses GPS signals received from a GPS satellite tomeasure a position (such as latitude, longitude, and altitude) of thecar navigation device 920. The sensor 925 may include a group of sensorssuch as a gyro sensor, a geomagnetic sensor, and an air pressure sensor.The data interface 926 is connected to, for example, an in-vehiclenetwork 941 via a terminal that is not shown, and acquires datagenerated by the vehicle, such as vehicle speed data.

The content player 927 reproduces content stored in a storage medium(such as a CD and a DVD) that is inserted into the storage mediuminterface 928. The input device 929 includes, for example, a touchsensor configured to detect touch onto a screen of the display device930, a button, or a switch, and receives an operation or an informationinput from a user. The display device 930 includes a screen such as aLCD or an OLED display, and displays an image of the navigation functionor content that is reproduced. The speaker 931 outputs sounds of thenavigation function or the content that is reproduced.

The radio communication interface 933 supports any cellularcommunication scheme such as LET and LTE-Advanced, and performs radiocommunication. The radio communication interface 933 may typicallyinclude, for example, a BB processor 934 and an RF circuit 935. The BBprocessor 934 may perform, for example, encoding/decoding,modulating/demodulating, and multiplexing/demultiplexing, and performsvarious types of signal processing for radio communication. Meanwhile,the RF circuit 935 may include, for example, a mixer, a filter, and anamplifier, and transmits and receives radio signals via the antenna 937.The radio communication interface 933 may be a one chip module havingthe BB processor 934 and the RF circuit 935 integrated thereon. Theradio communication interface 933 may include the multiple BB processors934 and the multiple RF circuits 935, as illustrated in FIG. 22.Although FIG. 22 illustrates the example in which the radiocommunication interface 933 includes the multiple BB processors 934 andthe multiple RF circuits 935, the radio communication interface 933 mayalso include a single BB processor 934 or a single RF circuit 935.

Furthermore, in addition to a cellular communication scheme, the radiocommunication interface 933 may support another type of radiocommunication scheme such as a short-distance wireless communicationscheme, a near field communication scheme, and a radio LAN scheme. Inthat case, the radio communication interface 933 may include the BBprocessor 934 and the RF circuit 935 for each radio communicationscheme.

Each of the antenna switches 936 switches connection destinations of theantennas 937 among multiple circuits (such as circuits for differentradio communication schemes) included in the radio communicationinterface 933.

Each of the antennas 937 includes a single or multiple antenna elements(such as multiple antenna elements included in an MIMO antenna), and isused for the radio communication interface 933 to transmit and receiveradio signals. The car navigation device 920 may include the multipleantennas 937, as illustrated in FIG. 22. Although FIG. 22 illustratesthe example in which the car navigation device 920 includes the multipleantennas 937, the car navigation device 920 may also include a singleantenna 937.

Furthermore, the car navigation device 920 may include the antenna 937for each radio communication scheme. In that case, the antenna switches936 may be omitted from the configuration of the car navigation device920.

The battery 938 supplies power to blocks of the car navigation device920 illustrated in FIG. 22 via feeder lines that are partially shown asdashed lines in the figure. The battery 938 accumulates power suppliedform the vehicle.

In the car navigation device 920 illustrated in FIG. 22, one or more ofthe components comprised in the processing circuity 110 (the selectingunit 111, the transmitting unit 112, and the receiving unit 113)described with reference to FIG. 2 may be implemented in the radiocommunication interface 933. Alternatively, at least some of thesecomponents may also be implemented in the processor 921. As an example,the car navigation device 920 may mount a module including a part (forexample, the BB processor 934) or the entire radio communicationinterface 933 and/or the processor 921, and the information acquisitionunit 241 and the control unit 243 may be implemented in the module. Inthis case, the module may store a program (in other words, a programcausing the processor to execute operations of the informationacquisition unit 241 and the control unit 243) causing the processor tofunction as the information acquisition unit 241 and the control unit243, and execute the program. As another example, a program causing theprocessor to function as the information acquisition unit 241 and thecontrol unit 243 may be installed in the car navigation device 920, andthe radio communication interface 933 (for example, the BB processor934) and/or the processor 921 may execute the program. As describedabove, as a device including the information acquisition unit 241 andthe control unit 243, the car navigation device 920 or the module may beprovided. A program causing the processor to function as the informationacquisition unit 241 and the control unit 243 may also be provided.

In addition, in the car navigation device 920 illustrated in FIG. 22,for example, the communication unit 120 described with reference to FIG.2 may be implemented in the radio communication interface 933 (forexample, the RF circuit 935). In addition, the antenna unit 210 may beimplemented in the antenna 937.

Embodiments of the technology of the present disclosure may also berealized as an in-vehicle system (or a vehicle) 940 including one ormore blocks of the car navigation device 920, the in-vehicle network941, and a vehicle module 942. That is, as a device including theinformation acquisition unit 241 and the control unit 243, thein-vehicle system (or the vehicle) 940 may be provided. The vehiclemodule 942 generates vehicle data such as vehicle speed, engine speed,and trouble information, and outputs the generated data to thein-vehicle network 941.

5-2. Application Related to Access Point

(First Application)

FIG. 23 is a block diagram illustrating a first example of a schematicconfiguration of an access point to which an embodiment of thetechnology of the present disclosure may be applied. In the figure, theaccess point is denoted as eNB 800. The eNB 800 includes one or moreantennas 810 and a base station device 820. Each antenna 810 and thebase station device 820 may be connected to each other via an RF cable.

Each of the antennas 810 includes a single or multiple antenna elements(such as multiple antenna elements included in an MIMO antenna), and isused for the base station device 820 to transmit and receive radiosignals. The eNB 800 may include the multiple antennas 810, asillustrated in FIG. 23. For example, the multiple antennas 810 may becompatible with multiple frequency bands used by the eNB 800. AlthoughFIG. 23 illustrates the example in which the eNB 800 includes themultiple antennas 810, the eNB 800 may also include a single antenna810.

The base station device 820 includes a controller 821, a memory 822, anetwork interface 823, and a radio communication interface 825.

The controller 821 may be, for example, a CPU or a DSP, and operatesvarious functions of a higher layer of the base station device 820. Forexample, the controller 821 generates a data packet from data in signalsprocessed by the radio communication interface 825, and transfers thegenerated packet via the network interface 823. The controller 821 maybundle data from multiple base band processors to generate the bundledpacket, and transfer the generated bundled packet. The controller 821may have logical functions of performing control such as radio resourcecontrol, radio bearer control, mobility management, admission control,and scheduling. The control may be performed in corporation with an eNBor a core network node in the vicinity. The memory 822 includes RAM andROM, and stores a program that is executed by the controller 821, andvarious types of control data (such as a terminal list, transmissionpower data, and scheduling data).

The network interface 823 is a communication interface for connectingthe base station device 820 to a core network 824. The controller 821may communicate with a core network node or another eNB via the networkinterface 823. In that case, the eNB 800, and the core network node orthe other eNB may be connected to each other through a logical interface(such as an S1 interface and an X2 interface). The network interface 823may also be a wired communication interface or a radio communicationinterface for radio backhaul. If the network interface 823 is a radiocommunication interface, the network interface 823 may use a higherfrequency band for radio communication than a frequency band used by theradio communication interface 825.

The radio communication interface 825 supports any cellularcommunication scheme such as Long Term Evolution (LTE) and LTE-Advanced,and provides radio connection to a terminal positioned in a cell of theeNB 800 via the antenna 810. The radio communication interface 825 maytypically include, for example, a baseband (BB) processor 826 and an RFcircuit 827. The BB processor 826 may perform, for example,encoding/decoding, modulating/demodulating, andmultiplexing/demultiplexing, and performs various types of signalprocessing of layers (such as L1, medium access control (MAC), radiolink control (RLC), and a packet data convergence protocol (PDCP)). TheBB processor 826 may have a part or all of the above-described logicalfunctions instead of the controller 821. The BB processor 826 may be amemory that stores a communication control program, or a module thatincludes a processor and a related circuit configured to execute theprogram. Updating the program may allow the functions of the BBprocessor 826 to be changed. The module may be a card or a blade that isinserted into a slot of the base station device 820. Alternatively, themodule may also be a chip that is mounted on the card or the blade.Meanwhile, the RF circuit 827 may include, for example, a mixer, afilter, and an amplifier, and transmits and receives radio signals viathe antenna 810.

The radio communication interface 825 may include the multiple BBprocessors 826, as illustrated in FIG. 23. For example, the multiple BBprocessors 826 may be compatible with multiple frequency bands used bythe eNB 800. The radio communication interface 825 may include themultiple RF circuits 827, as illustrated in FIG. 23. For example, themultiple RF circuits 827 may be compatible with multiple antennaelements. Although FIG. 23 illustrates the example in which the radiocommunication interface 825 includes the multiple BB processors 826 andthe multiple RF circuits 827, the radio communication interface 825 mayalso include a single BB processor 826 or a single RF circuit 827.

In the eNB 800 illustrated in FIG. 23, one or more of the components(the transmitting unit 211 and the receiving unit 212) of the processingcircuit 210 described with reference to FIG. 3 may be implemented in theradio communication interface 825. Alternatively, at least some of thesecomponents may also be implemented in the controller 821. As an example,the eNB 800 may mount a module including a part (for example, the BBprocessor 826) or the entire radio communication interface 825 and/orthe controller 821, and the control unit 153 (and the informationacquisition unit 151) may be implemented in the module. In this case,the module may store a program (in other words, a program causing theprocessor to execute operations of the control unit 153 (and theinformation acquisition unit 151)) causing the processor to function asthe control unit 153 (and the information acquisition unit 151), andexecute the program. As another example, a program causing the processorto function as the control unit 153 (and the information acquisitionunit 151) may be installed in the eNB 800, and the radio communicationinterface 825 (for example, the BB processor 826) and/or the controller821 may execute the program. As described above, as a device includingthe control unit 153 (and the information acquisition unit 151), the eNB800, the base station device 820 or the module may be provided. Aprogram causing the processor to function as the control unit 153 (andthe information acquisition unit 151) may also be provided. In addition,a readable recording medium in which the program is recorded may beprovided.

In addition, in the eNB 800 illustrated in FIG. 23, the communicationunit 120 described with reference to FIG. 3 may be implemented in theradio communication interface 825 (for example, the RF circuit 827). Inaddition, the communication unit 120 may be implemented in thecontroller 821 and/or the network interface 823.

(Second Application)

FIG. 24 is a block diagram illustrating a second example of a schematicconfiguration of an access point to which an embodiment of thetechnology of the present disclosure may be applied. In the figure, theaccess point is denoted as eNB 830. The eNB 830 includes one or moreantennas 840, a base station device 850, and an RRH 860. Each antenna840 and the RRH 860 may be connected to each other via an RF cable. Thebase station device 850 and the RRH 860 may be connected to each othervia a high speed line such as an optical fiber cable.

Each of the antennas 840 includes a single or multiple antenna elements(such as multiple antenna elements included in an MIMO antenna), and isused for the RRH 860 to transmit and receive radio signals. The eNB 830may include the multiple antennas 840, as illustrated in FIG. 24. Forexample, the multiple antennas 840 may be compatible with multiplefrequency bands used by the eNB 830. Although FIG. 24 illustrates theexample in which the eNB 830 includes the multiple antennas 840, the eNB830 may also include a single antenna 840.

The base station device 850 includes a controller 851, a memory 852, anetwork interface 853, a radio communication interface 855, and aconnection interface 857. The controller 851, the memory 852, and thenetwork interface 853 are the same as the controller 821, the memory822, and the network interface 823 described with reference to FIG. 23.

The radio communication interface 855 supports any cellularcommunication scheme such as LTE and LTE-Advanced, and provides radiocommunication to a terminal positioned in a sector corresponding to theRRH 860 via the RRH 860 and the antenna 840. The radio communicationinterface 855 may typically include, for example, a BB processor 856.The BB processor 856 is the same as the BB processor 826 described withreference to FIG. 23, except the BB processor 856 is connected to the RFcircuit 864 of the RRH 860 via the connection interface 857. The radiocommunication interface 855 may include the multiple BB processors 856,as illustrated in FIG. 24. For example, the multiple BB processors 856may be compatible with multiple frequency bands used by the eNB 830.Although FIG. 24 illustrates the example in which the radiocommunication interface 855 includes the multiple BB processors 856, theradio communication interface 855 may also include a single BB processor856.

The connection interface 857 is an interface for connecting the basestation device 850 (radio communication interface 855) to the RRH 860.The connection interface 857 may also be a communication module forcommunication in the above-described high speed line that connects thebase station device 850 (radio communication interface 855) to the RRH860.

The RRH 860 includes a connection interface 861 and a radiocommunication interface 863.

The connection interface 861 is an interface for connecting the RRH 860(radio communication interface 863) to the base station device 850. Theconnection interface 861 may also be a communication module forcommunication in the above-described high speed line.

The radio communication interface 863 transmits and receives radiosignals via the antenna 840. The radio communication interface 863 maytypically include, for example, the RF circuit 864. The RF circuit 864may include, for example, a mixer, a filter, and an amplifier, andtransmits and receives radio signals via the antenna 840. The radiocommunication interface 863 may include multiple RF circuits 864, asillustrated in FIG. 24. For example, the multiple RF circuits 864 maysupport multiple antenna elements. Although FIG. 24 illustrates theexample in which the radio communication interface 863 includes themultiple RF circuits 864, the radio communication interface 863 may alsoinclude a single RF circuit 864.

In the eNB 830 illustrated in FIG. 24, one or more of the components(the transmitting unit 211 and the receiving unit 212) of the processingcircuit 210 described with reference to FIG. 3 may be implemented in theradio communication interface 855 and/or the radio communicationinterface 863. Alternatively, at least some of these components may alsobe implemented in the controller 851. As an example, the eNB 830 maymount a module including a part (for example, the BB processor 856) orthe entire radio communication interface 855 and/or the controller 851,and the control unit 153 (and the information acquisition unit 151) maybe implemented in the module. In this case, the module may store aprogram (in other words, a program causing the processor to executeoperations of the control unit 153 (and the information acquisition unit151)) causing the processor to function as the control unit 153 (and theinformation acquisition unit 151), and execute the program. As anotherexample, a program causing the processor to function as the control unit153 (and the information acquisition unit 151) may be installed in theeNB 830, and the radio communication interface 855 (for example, the BBprocessor 856) and/or the controller 851 may execute the program. Asdescribed above, as a device including the control unit 153 (and theinformation acquisition unit 151), the eNB 830, the base station device850 or the module may be provided. A program causing the processor tofunction as the control unit 153 (and the information acquisition unit151) may also be provided. In addition, a readable recording medium inwhich the program is recorded may be provided.

In addition, in the eNB 800 illustrated in FIG. 24, for example, thecommunication unit 120 described with reference to FIG. 3 may beimplemented in the radio communication interface 825 (for example, theRF circuit 827). In addition, the communication unit 120 may beimplemented in the controller 821 and/or the network interface 823.

6. Conclusion

In an embodiment of the present disclosure, a coordinated transmissionsystem established by a user equipment is proposed in which thecooperation manner is no longer determined by the conventional accesspoint but it is the user equipment itself that determines thecooperation manner of the access points providing service for it.Therefore, CoMP technology can be applied to the network with the userequipment as its the center.

In addition, in the user equipment-centric coordinated transmissionsystem according to the embodiment of the present disclosure, the userequipment selects the data distribution center and coordinated accesspoints to perform coordinated transmission for it so as to establish acoordinated transmission system, and as compared with the conventionalCoMP in which the access point of the cell to which the user equipmentbelongs determined whether and how to transmit the data jointly to theuser equipment, it is not necessary for the user equipment to transmit ameasurement report of the state of the surrounding access points to theaccess points or the serving gateway, thus simplifying the flowpath ofthe process, shortening the processing time and saving communicationresources.

In addition, a user equipment-centric coordinated transmission system ofembodiments of the present disclosure utilizes communication betweenaccess points. In an embodiment of the present disclosure, the userequipment selects one of the access points as the data distributioncenter, the serving gateway transmits the data of the user equipment tothe data distribution center only, and the data distribution centerdistributes the data to the coordinated access points, which then,together with the data distribution center, transmit the data to theuser equipment. Therefore, the serving gateway does not have torepeatedly transmit data to the coordinated access points. In userequipment-centric networks, wired communications or wirelesscommunications utilizing a large amount of available spectrum, such asin the millimeter-wave band, may be used to enable communication betweenaccess points and, thus the data transmission speed between the accesspoints is faster than that achieved by wireless backhaul through the S1interface between the service gateway and the access points. Therefore,as compared to the repeated transmission of the data of the userequipment by the serving gateway to each of the coordinated accesspoints, the wireless communication resources between the serving gatewayand the access points can be saved, the transmission efficiency can beincreased, and the data delay can be reduced.

Further, according to the embodiment of the present disclosure, thedynamic updating mechanism of the access point of the userequipment-centric coordinated transmission system can effectively enablethe multi-point cooperation to adaptively adapt the user equipment'scontinuously moving transmission scenario. Furthermore, the internalswitching mechanism of the data distribution center of the userequipment-centric coordinated transmission system according to theembodiments of the present disclosure can effectively deal withscenarios where the user equipment moves, greatly reducing the number ofthe switching of the data distribution center and greatly reducing thedelay caused by the switching of the data distribution center.

The example in which the communication system is a system conforming toLTE or LTE-A has been described, but an embodiment of the presentdisclosure is not limited thereto. For example, the communication systemmay be a system conforming to another communication standard. In thiscase, the UE may be another terminal device and the access point may beanother base station.

Reference in the specification to “an embodiment,” or similar language,means that a particular feature, structure, or characteristic describedin connection with the embodiment is included in at least one embodimentof the present disclosure. Therefore, the appearances of terms “in theembodiments of the present disclosure” and similar expressions do notnecessarily refer to the same embodiment.

Those skilled in the art will appreciate that the present disclosure isimplemented as a system, apparatus, method, or computer readable mediumas a computer program product. Accordingly, the present disclosure maybe embodied in various forms, for example, an entirely hardwareembodiment, an entirely software embodiment (including firmware,resident software, micro-program code, etc.), or embodiment as animplementation of software and hardware, which will be referred to as“circuit”, “module” or “system.” In addition, the present disclosure mayalso be embodied as a computer program product having computer-usableprogram code stored thereon in any form of tangible media.

The related description of the present disclosure will be described withreference to the flowchart and/or block diagrams of systems, devices,methods, and computer program products according to embodiments of thepresent disclosure. It will be understood that each block of eachflowchart and/or block diagram, and any combination of blocks in theflowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams, may be implemented usingcomputer program instructions. These computer program instructions maybe executed by a general purpose computer or a special computerprocessor or other programmable data processing apparatus and theinstructions are executed via a computer or other programmable dataprocessing apparatus to implement flowcharts and/or block diagrams Inthe description of the function or operation.

In the drawings are flowcharts and block diagrams illustrating thestructure, functionality, and operation of systems, apparatuses,methods, and computer program products according to various embodimentsof the present disclosure. Thus, each block of the flowchartillustrations or block diagrams may represent a single block, block, orsection of program code that includes one or more executableinstructions to implement a designated logical function. Additionally,it should be noted that in some other embodiments, the functionsdescribed by the blocks may not be performed in the order shown in thefigures. For example, two blocks which are connected in the drawings mayin fact be executed at the same time or may be executed in the reverseorder in some cases according to the functions involved. Further notethat the blocks of each block diagram and/or flowchart, and combinationsof blocks in the block diagrams and/or flowchart illustrations, may beimplemented by special purpose hardware based systems or may performspecific functions or operations by the combinations of dedicatedhardware and computer instructions.

1. An electronic device, comprising: processing circuitry, configuredto: from a plurality of available access points, select one or moreavailable access points as one or more coordinated access points andselect one available access point as a data distribution center,transmit information about the one or more coordinated access points tothe data distribution center, such that in response to receipt of datawith the electrical device as destination from service gateway, the datedistribution center transmits the data with the electrical device asdestination to the one or more coordinated access points, and whenreceiving the data with the electrical device as destination, receivethe data with the electrical device as destination via the coordinatedtransmission of the data distribution center and the one or morecoordinated access points.
 2. The electronic device according to claim1, wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to obtainpredicted service quality of each of the plurality of available accesspoints, and select the coordinated access points and the datedistribution center.
 3. The electronic device according to claim 2,wherein the predicted service quality is based on at least one of:channel quality between the access point and the electronic device;inherent parameters of the access point; current status information ofthe access point; and resources which is predicted to be assigned to theelectronic device by the access point. 4.-6. (canceled)
 7. Theelectronic device according to claim 3, wherein the processing circuitryis further configured to preferably consider the channel quality betweenthe access point and the electronic device when selecting thecoordinated access points and the date distribution center.
 8. Theelectronic device according to claim 7, wherein the processing circuitryis further configured to subsequently consider the resources which ispredicted to be assigned to the electronic device by the access pointwhen selecting the coordinated access points.
 9. The electronic deviceaccording to claim 7, wherein the processing circuitry is furtherconfigured to subsequently consider the inherent parameters of theaccess point when selecting the coordinated access points.
 10. Theelectronic device according to claim 3, wherein the processing circuitryis further configured to select the date distribution center from theselected coordinated access points based on the inherent parameters ofthe access point.
 11. The electronic device according to claim 1,wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to receive theidentification signal of the access points and identify the availableaccess points based on the received identification signal of the accesspoints.
 12. (canceled)
 13. The electronic device according to claim 1,wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to: determinewhether to release a coordinated access point based on current servicequantity of the coordinated access point, in response to thedetermination of releasing the coordinated access point, transmitinformation of the released coordinated access point to the datadistribution center, such that in response to the receipt of data withthe electrical device as destination, the date distribution center doesnot transmit the data with the electrical device as destination to thecoordinated access points.
 14. The electronic device according to claim1, wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to: select oneor more of the available access points as additional coordinated accesspoints, transmit information about the additional coordinated accesspoints to the date distribution center, such that in response to thereceipt of data with the electrical device as destination, the datedistribution center further transmits the data with the electricaldevice as destination to the additional coordinated access points, andwhen receiving the data with the electrical device as destination,receive the data with the electrical device as destination via thecoordinated transmission of the data distribution center and thecoordinated access points including the additional coordinated accesspoint.
 15. The electronic device according to claim 1, wherein theprocessing circuitry is further configured to do not select additionalcoordinated access points in a case that number of the coordinatedaccess points reaches limits.
 16. The electronic device according toclaim 1, wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to:determine whether to switch the date distribution center based oncurrent service quantity of the data distribution center, in response tothe determination of switching the data distribution center, transmit,select one of the coordinated access points as new data distributioncenter, transmit information about the one or more coordinated accesspoints to the new data distribution center, such that in response to thereceipt of data with the electrical device as destination, the new datedistribution center transmits the data with the electrical device asdestination to the one or more coordinated access points, and releasethe original data distribution center.
 17. The electronic deviceaccording to claim 16, wherein the processing circuitry is furtherconfigured to switch the data distribution center only in a case thatthe current service quantity of the data distribution center decreasesbelow a threshold.
 18. A electronic device, comprising: processingcircuitry, configured to: in a case that the electronic device isselected as data distribution center by user equipment, transmitinformation about the user equipment and the data distribution center toservice gateway, receive information about coordinated access pointsfrom the user equipment, in response to receipt of data with theelectrical device as destination from the service gateway, transmit thedata with the electrical device as destination to the user equipment andthe coordinated access points, such that the data with the electricaldevice as destination is transmitted to the user equipment via thecoordinated transmission of the data distribution center and thecoordinated access points; and in a case that the electronic device isselected as the coordinated access points by the user equipment, inresponse to the receipt of data with the electrical device asdestination, transmit the data with the electrical device as destinationto the user equipment, such that the data with the electrical device asdestination is transmitted to the user equipment via the coordinatedtransmission of the data distribution center and the coordinated accesspoints.
 19. The electronic device according to claim 18, wherein theprocessing circuitry is configured to, in the case that the electronicdevice is selected as data distribution center, communicate with thecoordinated access points to confirm resource scheduling of thecoordinated transmission. 20-28. (canceled)
 29. A communication method,comprising: from a plurality of available access points, selecting, by auser equipment, one or more available access points as one or morecoordinated access points and select one available access point as adata distribution center, transmitting, by the user equipment,information about the one or more coordinated access points to the datadistribution center, such that in response to receipt of data with theuser equipment as destination from the service gateway, the datedistribution center transmits the data with the user equipment asdestination to the one or more coordinated access points, and when theuser equipment receives the data with the user equipment as destination,receiving the data with the user equipment as destination via thecoordinated transmission of the data distribution center and the one ormore coordinated access points.
 30. A communication method, comprising:in a case that the access point is selected as data distribution centerby user equipment, transmit, by the data distribution center,information about the user equipment and the data distribution center toservice gateway, receive, by the data distribution center, informationabout coordinated access points from the user equipment, in response toreceipt of data with the user equipment as destination from the servicegateway by the date distribution center, transmit, by the datedistribution center, the data with the user equipment as destination tothe user equipment and the coordinated access points, such that the datawith the user equipment as destination is transmitted to the userequipment via the coordinated transmission of the data distributioncenter and the coordinated access points; and in a case that the accesspoint is selected as the coordinated access points by the userequipment, in response to receipt of data with the user equipment asdestination by the coordinated access points, transmit, by thecoordinated access points, the data with the user equipment asdestination to the user equipment, such that the data with the userequipment as destination is transmitted to the user equipment via thecoordinated transmission of the data distribution center and thecoordinated access points.
 31. A computer readable medium, includingexecutable instructions, which when executed by an informationprocessing machine cause the information processing machine to execute amethod according to claim
 29. 32. A computer readable medium, includingexecutable instructions, which when executed by an informationprocessing machine cause the information processing machine to execute amethod according to claim
 30. 33. A computer program, includingexecutable instructions, which when executed by an informationprocessing machine cause the information processing machine to execute amethod according to claim 29.